NEW DELHI: In a major reprieve for SpiceJet, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has lifted the 50% cap on its flight operations from this winter schedule, effective October 30.
The low cost carrier, which expects funding of about Rs 1,000 crore from the government’s modified emergency credit scheme, has been allowed to operate 3,193 weekly domestic flights — up 6.6% from last winter’s figure of 2,995.
Now, GoAir or GoFirst will see its operations nosedive by nearly 40% with 1,390 weekly flights this winter compared to 2,290 last time, due to as any as 22 of its aircraft grounded as they await engines that have been delayed by global supply chain issues.
Overall this winter will see marginally (1.5%) less domestic flights than last year. A winter schedule for 21,941 weekly domestic flights has been approved for this winter, compared to 22,287 same time last year.
Tata Group Vistara and soon to be privatised Alliance Air will see the maximum growth in flights at 16% and 13.5%, respectively.
The biggest relief in the winter schedule is for SpiceJet, whose operations were capped this summer after a series of snags in its fleet.
The restrictions was in place from July 27 to October 29, when the summer schedule ends.
The DGCA’s July 27 order had said “any increase in the number of departures beyond 50 % of the number of departures approved under summer schedule 2022… shall be subject to the airline demonstrating to the satisfaction of DGCA that it has sufficient technical support and financial resource to safely and efficiently undertake such enhanced capacity.”
Clearly lifting of the restrictions means the DGCA is now satisfied that SpiceJet has the resources to to operate more flights.
The low cost airline will lease about seven planes to do the same, with a couple of them already here. It recently hiked salaries of its pilots. On a standalone basis, SpiceJet will be the second biggest airline in terms of approved schedule for domestic flights after IndiGo.
Winter Schedule 2022 will be effective from October 30 to March 25, 2023. In that “21,941 departures per week have been approved from 105 airports. Deoghar, Shimla and Rourkela are the new airports (for operating flights) proposed by the scheduled airlines,” the DGCA said in a statement.
IndiGo will remain the biggest operator with 10,085 weekly domestic flight, down 1.5% from 10,243 last time.
Tata Group airlines — Air India (1,990), Vistara (1,941) and AirAsia India or AAIPL (1,462) — have a collective schedule for 5,393 domestic flights, 5% more than last winter’s 5,121.
GoAir has a significant part of its fleet grounded due to want of engines and will its operations shrink the most. While Trujet and Pawan Hans have suspended their scheduled operations, Akasa has started flying from this summer.
